SPECIAL ISSUE:
IMPERIALISM AND THE STATE
AMIN
BAMAT
CLAWSON
DISNEY
DUPUY & FITZGERALD
EVANSOHN
FERNANDEZ-KELLEY
GERSTEIN
MAGDOFF
SZYMANSKI
TRIMBERGER
WALLERSTEIN
"VOL.VII GNQ. II
SPRING 1977
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Insurgent Sociologist
Department of Sociology
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U.S. naval power anywhere in the world. They insist that the
Soviet presence in the Indian Ocean is a direct threat to U,S.
commercial shipping, particularly to oil tankers leaving the
Persian Gulf.4s
Although a thorough examination of the changes and
developments in the Soviet navy is beyond the scope of this
essay, evidence to support three propositions will be advanced
in the following pages. First, the Soviet Union's naval activities
in the Indian Ocean are largely to deter and to defend against
U.S. ballistic missile submarines and carrier-based nuclear
forces; second, the Russian navy has neither the necessary
support facilities nor the naval capabilities to sustain a
conventional
46
war at sea. The United States still maintains a
superior and more effective navy; and thus, the possibility of
Soviet interference against Western shipping lanes in the region
is highly unrealistic. Thirdly, in addition to deterring a nuclear
strike from U.S. forces based in the Indian Ocean, the role of
the Soviet navy is to expand Soviet political and economic
influence in the area and to protect their regional clients from
a U.S'/NATO attack.
47
It is these last two roles that have
disrupted the Pentagon's original intentions and calculations
for making Diego Garcia into a military base. This has thus
forced U.S. policy-makers to revise American strategy in the
Indian Ocean to adjust for Soviet economic and political, not
military, advances in the region.
I
In support of the first proposition one need only look at
the structure and deployment of the Soviet navy. Ever since
the United States perfected and refined the Polaris system, the
USSR has been attempting to redress the American strategic
advantage. When U.S. a,ircraft carriers were equipped with
nuclear attack forces in early 1966 and operated in regions
within striking range of the Soviet homeland, this added to
Russia's vulnerability. In response, the Soviet government
began to construct various types of warships to defend against
these threats. TIe Soviet fleet has made impressive strides in
its antisubma, e (ASW) and anticarrier capabilities. Indeed,
one observer noted that "anticarrier operations are accorded a
central role in all major Soviet naval exercises. ,,48 At the same
time, the Soviet navy has developed an extremely formidable
strategic offensive capability to deter a pre-emptive U.S.
nuclear strike. The development of highly effective cruise
missiles gives the USSR an impressive antisurface ship
capability. Moreover, the high priority the Soviet Union has
placed on the development of advanced strategic submarines
"now gives [them] a credible, sea-based strategic missile force.
As such, for the first time, the Soviet Navy presents a direct
[nuclear] threat to the continental United States.,,49
It is clear that if nuclear conflict between the
superpowers were to occur, the Soviet navy currently possesses
the capability to inflict "excessive" costs on the United States.
Equally clear is the Soviet Union's concern over U.S. sea-based
nuclear forces.
This concern was first demonstrated by Soviet naval
deployments in the Mediterranean. A meticulously docu­
mented study by Goeffrey Jukes, of the Intern'ltional Institute
for Strategic Studies in London, points out That when the
United States began negotiations with Spain for a Polaris base
there, Soviet ASW ships soon appeared on a sustained basis in
the Mediterranean. Jukes concludes that while "the Soviet
58
forward deployment no doubt served flag-showing purposes as
well, the primary reason for it must have been the emergence
of the Mediterranean as an area from which a serious [U.S.)
threat was posed ..." so
The Soviet Navy's entrance into the Indian Ocean
strongly suggests that their motivations were similar to those
which initiated the Soviet deployment in the Mediterranean.
Jukes observed that when the advanced Polaris A3 became
operational in 1963, it opened new Russian territories for
potential U.S. nuclear strikes. jukes concluded that by 1964
the Soviet leadership must ,have calculated that Polaris A3
missiles launched from "the north-west corner of the Indian
Ocean (the Arabian Sea) exposed to attack all areas between
the Western Soviet border and Eastern Siberia, on an arc
extending almost as far north as Leningrad and including all
main industrial areas from the Ukraine to the [Kuznetsk Basin
in western Siberia)." 51 Substance was given to this threat
when the United States announced in 1963 that a naval
communications facility would be built at the North-West
Cape of Australia. The facility was thought to be part of a
contingency plan for deploying missile submarines in the
Arabian Sea.
si
The Soviet Union's reaction to these developments was a
proposal at the United Nations of December 1964 calling for a
nuclear-free Indian Ocean. Whatever the propagandistic
purposes of this plan, it did reflect a degree of genuine interest
in arms control: some proposals were used in later, more
thorough negotiations. 53 Nevertheless, when this approach
failed, the Soviet Union turned to a military solution to cope
with the nuclear threat from the Arabian Sea. In March 1968
Soviet warships for the first time entered the Indian Ocean.
The force was composed of three ships, armed with
surface-to-air (SAM-defensive only) and surface-to-sul"face
missiles (SSM-offensive capabilities). This deployment corres­
ponds with the patterns observed in the Mediterranean. It
therefore suggests that "the role being exercised in the Indian
Ocean is similar, namely that the force is equipped to defend
itself against attack by [U.S.] carrier aircraft long enough for
the SSM to be launched against the carrier." M From 1968 to
1971, Soviet naval activity in the Indian Ocean rapidly
increased. Since then, the number of missions have been about
two or three annually. As Jukes concluded, "the Soviet naval
presence in the Indian Ocean has at no time been large, and it
has been self-contained in that its supply ships accompany the
warships." 55 Furthermore, these deployments "probably
represent a combination of flag-showing force and area­
familiarization detachment orientated (a mix of SSM, SAM,
and ASW ships) to an anti-Polaris and/or anti-carrier role, with
the additional political objective of securing de-nuclearization
of the Indian Ocean." 56
II
The growth in the Soviet Union's nuclear defense and
deterrence naval capabilities has clearly been impressive. Yet at
the same time, the Soviet navy has severely neglected factors
that would allow sustained operations against U.S. combat
vessels during a conventional war at sea.
First, compared to U.S. logistical support bases in and
around the Indian Ocean, the Soviet Navy is seriously
handicapped. Nowhere does the Soviet fleet have "access to
full-service installations that can compare to the U.s. Navy
I
The Soviet Navy's presence in the region has been only a
recent concern to the United States. In fact, high level
State and Defense Department officials have stated that
America's military involvement in the area would have
occurred regardless of Soviet activities ... Instead, Diego
Garcia was chosen not as a response to a Soviet military
threat but as a site from which to project U.S. armed
force, or the threat of it, against Asia, Africa, and the
Middle East.
facilities at Subic B1 in the Philippines, Yokosuka in Japan,
or Rota in Spain." 5 Diego Garcia can soon be added to this
list, as could probably Simonstown, South Africa, if
conventional war between the superpowers erupted. Without
such overseas naval bases, Russia would have to restrict
substantially its naval deployments in such a conflict.
The Soviet Union has attempted to rectify this situation
by increasing its presence in Berbera, Somalia. 'In late
1973-after the United States had announced its plans to
expand the facilities on Diego Garcia-Soviet military
construction teams began to build missile storage houses on
Berbera. Today, the Soviet navy has access to a moderately
sized supply and storage base in Somalia. Included are
petroleum storage facilities that hold about 190,000 barrels,
dock and port facilities and a naval communications center.
An airfield is currently being widened and lengthened. There is
also an elaborate and well-stocked supply of SSM, ASM and
possibly SAM missiles for the Soviet navy. A group of U.S.
Congressional representatives who visited Berbera in July 1975
reported that these facilities were
clearly beyond the present needs and the technical
capabilities of current Somali military forces and personnel.
The missile facility can store or handle naval missiles of a
substantial size. The Somali Navy has no known capacity
for using naval missiles at all. 58
To assist and support these activities in Berbera are about
3,000 Soviet military technicians. Undoubtedly, this repre­
sents a relatively substantial increase in Soviet naval support
facilities in the Indian Ocean. 59
At the same time, though, evidence strongly suggests
that when Soviet activities were first confirmed by U.S.
intelligence agencies, top level defense leaders did little or
nothing to deter this buildup. Rather, they seem to have used
the Soviet presence to gain Congressional support for
expanding the facilities on Diego Garcia. According to former
U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James Akins, in 1975 the
Saudi Government offered to finance some $15 million in
t
economic and military assistance to Somalia. The objective of
this assistance was the elimination of the Soviet presence
I
there. Yet this offer was "stopped dead in Washington." Akins
imputes Washington's vetoing of the Saudi aid to the fact that
the Defense Department was then pressing Congress for
additional construction funds for Diego Gardia.
6o
Why the
I
Saudis did not give aid to Somalia directly is unknown.
Nevertheless, it is true that at that time the Pentagon was
pressuring Congress for construction funds. In early June
l
1975, Secretary of Defense Schlesinger devoted nearly his
entire testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee
to the threat of Soviet facilities on Berbera. Soon afterwanl.
S9
Congress approved $13.4 million for Diego Garcia.
Although this evidence does not prove conclusively that
Washington perceived no threat from the Soviet's presence in
Berbera, it does show that Berbera was manipulated by the
Pentagon to influence Congressional opinion toward Diego
Garcia. And, again, Congress was never informed about the
Saudi aid offer during the Indian Ocean debate. Not
surprisingly, the Pentagon's highly publicized warning over the
Soviet activity in Berbera quickly ceased after the passage of
funds for Diego Garcia. High-level policy-makers were
apparently more concerned with expanding Diego Garcia than
with reducing actual Soviet influence in Somalia. But even
with a base at Berbera, the Soviet navy still falls short of
matching the U.S. overseas logistical support facilities.
61
The Soviet navy suffers from a second handicap. It has
no "true attack carriers and thus cannot maintain air
superiority over its naval forces on the high seas.,,62 In the
words of a Brookings analyst, the "absence of sea-based
surface air power in the Soviet Navy limits the force's ability
to maintain surface units at sea in a hostile environment." 63
Furthermore, with few support ships and overseas bases to rely
upon, the Soviet Navy would be placed at a distinct
disadvantage in any conflict. Because the two navies have
different operational and logistical capabilities, the United
States would have a commanding long-term advantage over the
Soviet fleet during a conventional war at sea.
The Soviet fleet could still inflict serious losses on the
U.S. Navy during a conventional war. But, according to former
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 1976, they could
"threaten our Navy task groups in open areas, and seriously
threaten, but not cut, the lines of communication to U.S.
allies.,,64 This overwhelming U.S. superiority in maintaining
conventional naval warfare capabilities severely handicaps the
capability of the Soviet Union to interfere with commercial
shipping anywhere in the world. Indeed, current evidence
strongly suggests "that interdiction missions are of limited
importance in Soviet planning." 6S In regard to the Indian
Ocean, such operations by the Soviet Navy become even more
unlikely. First, for reasons already analyzed, the Soviet Navy
cannot sustain such actions against an expected U.S.lNATO
response. Second, the Soviet high command knows that access
to its own Black Sea and Baltic ports, through which 88
percent of its seaborn trade passes, would be equally
vulnerable to a similar counteraction.
66
In short, if the Soviet
Union was to attack Western shipping lanes, clearly it would
not choose to do so in the Indian Ocean.
There are occasions when top-level Pentagon officials
have admitted the Soviet Navy's weaknesses and limitations.
These acknowledgments are infrequent and rarely publicized,
however. For example, former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld
pointed out in 1976 that the Soviet Navy has
a poor capability for sustained combat operations ... a
limited ability to provide logistics support to their forces at
sea, and their logistic ships are highly vulnerable. Finally,
they have little capability to project power ashore in distant
areas because they have no sea-based tactical air power, and
their amphibious forces are designed for short duration
amphibious lift near the homeland. 67
In more general terms, former Defense Secretary Schlesinger
said that a "basic asymmetry" existed between the naval
capabilities of the superpowers. While the United States
emphasizes "sea control and the projection of power ashore,
the Soviet Union stresses defense against U.S. power
projection efforts." 68
These conclusions reinforce my contention that U.S.
military expansion in the Indian Ocean has been primarily
directed toward influencing events in the countries surround­
ing the Indian Ocean. The Soviet Navy's presence in the
region has been only a recent concern to the United States. In
fact, high-level State and Defense Department officials have
stated that America's military involvement in the area would
have occurred regardless of Soviet activities. For instance, in
1974, Admiral Zumwalt stated that plans to expand Diego
Garcia "would exist independently of anything the Soviets are
doing"; James Noyes, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense,
agreed that if "there were no such entity in the world as the
Soviet Union," the United States would stiII expand the
facilities at Diego Garcia"; and Seymore Weiss, Director of the
State Department's Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs stated,
"I have every confidence in the world that ... if there were no
Soviet naval forces in the area whatsoever that we would want,
and indeed it would be in our national interests, to maintain a
presence there ... I can say without any qualification that we
would retain [a military I capability in that area whether or
not there were Soviet Forces." 69
It is clear that the protection of Western shipping lanes
against possible Soviet attack was not the rationale behind the
building of Diego Garcia. Instead, Diego Garcia was chosen not
as a response to a Soviet military threat but as a site from
which to project U.S. armed force:;, or the threat of it, against
Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
Yet only in the past four or five years have all top U.S.
policy-making branches agreed upon the need for a large
military facility on the island. The consensus took a relatively
long time to form because of the Vietnam War and the
overwhelming attention it absorbed. Once that conflict began
to wind down, the Nixon Administration initiated its
"naval/island strategy" for the post-Vietnam era and the need
for Diego Garcia increased. From this Indian Ocean base, U.S.
naval forces will be able to defend and assist client states and
regional allies whenever and wherever necessary. As Admiral
Zumwalt pointed out in 1972, U.S. naval forces stationed at
strategically located bases, can "support distant U.S. forces
overseas, and under the Nixon Doctrine, when required, the
indigenous armies of our allies, necessitating forward defense,
sea control, and the ability to project power ashore." 70 With
these strategic concepts in mind, high-level policy-makers
rapidly closed ranks in their support for Diego Garcia. Indeed,
President Ford in 1975 certified to Congress that funds for
Diego Garcia were "essential to the national interest." 71
III
Any success in these U.S. objectives has now been
dampened by the Soviet Union. Moscow too has acquired the
naval capabilities to protect and defend its overseas allies and
clients from either domestic or foreign threats. To Pentagon
and State Department officials, the Soviet presence in the
Indian Ocean threatens to restrict or discourage U.S. armed
intervention.
What alarms U.S. defense leaders most, however, is the
Soviet Union's efforts to expand its influence and control in
the ocean area through non-military means. Since the
mid-1960s, Moscow has aggressively widened its penetration
into the Third World by foreign aid, trade, and investments.
60
The Soviet foreign aid program is one method that has
substantially contributed to Soviet successes in the under­
developed world. But unlike American foreign aid programs,
Soviet assistance is limited to a small number of what it
considers to be strategically important countries. Geograph­
ically, the recipients of 80 percent of Soviet aid are "a narrow
band of nations, extending from the Mediterranean to China's
southwestern borders." 72 The most notable of them are
Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Vietnam,
and Indonesia.
73
From the inception of its economic assistance
program in 1954 to the year 1975, the Soviet government has
pledged a total of $11 billion to the Third World. However, in
the second half of the program (1966-75) average annual aid
pledges more than doubled (to $677 million) from the first
half total of $310 million (1954-64). Furthermore, "aid
reached a new annual high when more than $1 billion was
extended for the first time in 1966. Commitments exceeding
$1 billion were repeated in 1971 and 1975.,,74
Along with this assistance have come Soviet technicians.
From 1970 to 1975, the number of economic technicians in
the Third World increased from 10,600 to 17,785 (if Eastern
Europe is included, the increase is from 15,900 to 3 1 ~ 7 0 0 ) .
The 1975 total of Soviet technicians doubled the number a
decade before. In the Near East and South Asia, where the
largest contingent of adviors are located, the number of
technicians jumped from 6,455 to 11,500 during 1970-75. In
Africa, the number increased from 4,010 to 5,930.
75
Almost "without exception, Soviet aid is tied with
Soviet equipment purchases. Rarely are commodities or hard
currency provided." 76 Very little outright grant aid is given; 95
percent of all Soviet aid is in credits. Since 1964, some credits
have required a 10 to 15 percent downpayment, repayment
over 5 to 10 years and at least a 3 percent interest rate.
Repayment of Soviet aid has thus caught many recipients in a
tight financial bind. In fact, repayment equalled about 40
percent of the Soviet's aid deliveries between 1974-75, and in
1975 alone, totalled $ 3 00 million or twice the 1969 level. The
consequence is that India has been paying back more than it
has received in new loans for each of the last several years.
Last year, Egypt owed more than it received. 77
Soviet inroads in the recipient countries continue to
expand as aid programs progress. Joint ownership adventures
are on the increase, a. practice that parallels U.S. private
foreign investment. Moscow's concentration on heavy
industrial aid, "showy industrial projects"-steel mills and
power plants-is another method of penetrating Third World
countries. These practices also result in considerable economic
benefit for the Soviet Union, as a Congressional study pointed
out:
Soviet aid was at first directly responsible for the sharp rise
in trade with LDCs [less developed countries} and now
indirectly responsible for its continued growth. The
U.S.S. R. has found aid recipients to be important capital
goods markets and supplementary suppliers of raw
materials and consumer goods. 78
The importance of trade to the Russian economy was
made clear as far back as 1961. At the Twenty-second
Congress of the CPSU, Anastas Mikoyan announced that it
"will be necessary to make use of foreign trade as a factor in
economizing in current production expenditures and in capital
investment." 79 Al though Mikoyan did not specifically refer to
it, trade with the developing countries was on the minds of
Soviet policy-makers. By 1975, V. Morozov, First Deputy
Chairman of the State Committee for Foreign Economic
Relations, acknowledged that "the USSR's cooperation with
the developing countries is one of the major sectors of the
Soviet Union's foreign economic relations.,,80
In addition to gaining economic benefit from Third
World trade, Moscow is very aware of the political
ramifications of its actions. One Soviet writer on trade matters
recognized "the strong bonds which tie most the developing
countries of the World capitalist market are still yet intact and
put foreign trade in a special place among neocolonialism's
instruments." Soviet policy is thus aimed at replacing Western
trade to the developing countries with its own. As the same
Soviet author wrote, "An alternative to the existing situation
is offered by the extension of economic cooperation between
developing countries and the countries of the Socialist
economic system."SI Thus, this process of Soviet aid, trade,
and investment to the Third World threatens to weaken the
Western-dominated international economic structure. Soviet
trade and investment penetration has already supplanted U.S.
and European supremacy in some African and Asian countries.
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61
Economic and military assistance and heavy industrial projects
have considerably strengthened Soviet influence in Somalia,
Uganda, Mozambique, Angola and India and threatens to
increase elsewhere.
Soviet economic and political thrusts in the Indian
Ocean have clearly been on the rise. These activities have been
supported by a growing Soviet military presence and they
reflect basic Soviet foreign policy goals. Geoffrey Jukes has
observed that "the entire thrust of Soviet diplomacy since the
death of Stalin has been to urge Third World countries toward
non-alignment which is consistent with reception of good will
visits from Soviet warships." 82 This objective is currently being
sought with new vigor and supported by an impressive display
of Russian naval flag-showing. It began in 1968 when Soviet
warships first entered the Indian Ocean to counter U.S.
strategic initiatives. But possibly even more important was that
those naval visits coincided with the withdrawal of British
forces from the Persian Gulf. The role of the Soviet Navy in
this case was clearly to support Moscow's diplomatic
objectives of expanding its political influence in the Persian
Gulf. Barry Blechman has pointed out that Soviet warships in
the Indian Ocean reflect the new function of the Navy:
Whereas in the past the Soviet Navy was designed and
operated primarily as a defensive force--to deter and if
necessary to defend the Soviet homeland from attack from
the seas-the modern Soviet Navy seems to be assuming a
wider range of roles. The most important include
deployment of strategic nuclear weapons, deterrence of
Western sea-based interventions on the periphery of the
USSR (for example, in the Middle East), and carrying out
various peacetime missions, such as show-the-flag cruises
and other military demonstrations. In general, the Soviet
Navy is changing from a force reserved only for wartime
contingencies to one used to support Soviet foreign policy
in peacetime. 83
The serious consequence for U.S. defense officials is that in
the past eight years the Soviet Union has successfully
challenged "U.S. political-military initiatives in areas which
were once exclusive Western preserves.,,84 But the crucial
point is that these Soviet activities represent a political and
economic and not a military challenge to the United States. It
is the political challenge, with its vital economic ramification,
which worries and frustrates Washington policy-makers so
much. As Admiral Zumwalt lamented to the Armed Services
Committee, the Soviet Union now has "acquired the ability to
compete most effectively with us in the peacetime,
para-diplomatic use of naval power." (emphasis added) 85
Soviet political inroads in Africa, Asia, and the Middle
East present defenders of the Nixon Doctrine-or their
successors in the Carter administration-with a serious
problem. The Soviet Navy's para-diplomatic role may
substantially undercut U.S. influence and authority because it
may be seen by some Third World countries as a possible
deterrent against possible U.S. intervention. This, in turn,
threatens to fragment further world political alliances and
hence to weaken America's position as the world's foremost
hegemonic power. In short, the continued expansion of the
Soviet Navy's influence and visibility in the Indian Ocean may
thwart the fundamental purpose of Diego Garcia in U.S. global
strategy.
62'
What alarms U.S. defense leaders most, however, is the
Soviet Union's efforts to expand its' influence and
control in the ocean area through non-military means.
Since the mid-1960s, Moscow has aggressively widened
its penetration into the Third World by foreign aid, trade
and investments ... As Admiral Zumwalt lamented to
the Armed Services Committee, the Soviet Union now
has "acquired the ability to compete most effectively
with us in the peacetime, para-diplomatic use of naval
power."
Conclusions
U.S. policy-makers have responded in various ways to
prevent this slow decline of America's world authority. Under
the Nixon Doctrine certain U.S. allies were pressured into
playing a more salient role in their particular regions as
Washington adjusted to domestic and international changes.
But as the Soviet Union's political-economic challenges have
increased, U.S. strategy has been framed with a new focus in
mind. Pentagon policy-makers now seem to be placing special
emphasis on generating their own particular type of
"threat/perception" abroad. To a large extent, this has been
accomplished by exaggerating to Congress and to U.S. allies
the Soviet Union's military power. That is, Pentagon leaders
have misrepresented the Soviet threat as a military problem
while in fact it is an economic challenge. The goal has been to
gain domestic support for the Pentagon's plans and to
strengthen U.S. foreign alliances.
86
But an important
byproduct of this process has been to minimize peaceful,
diplomatic mItIatlves in international conflicts and to
exacerbate indigenous regional tensions through the sale of
U.S. arms and equipment. A survey of events in the Western
Indian Ocean demonstrates how this operates:
• In the Persian Gulf, the United States has encouraged
Iran's and <;; iUdi Arabia's perception of the Soviet Union's
military th at (in Berbera and in the Indian Ocean) and of
Soviet-supported insurgency (in Dhofar and in Southern
Yemen). As a result, Iran and Saudi Arabia have rapidly
modernized and expanded their military forces and have taken
active steps in crushing local insurgent movements. The United
States has wholeheartedly supported these policies. In 1975,
for example, 56 percent of all U.S. foreign military sales went
to Iran and Saudi Arabia. Thousands of U.S. military and
civilian advisors have accompanied these sales. 87
• In East Africa, the same tactics have been used with
similar results. By pointing to Soviet influence in Angola and
Somalia, and to Amin's erratic behavior in Uganda,
Washington again has emphasized the Soviet menace to
pro-Western African states. This has further exacerbated
indigenous regional tensions. Ethiopia, Kenya and Zaire are
prominent U.S. allies: all three countries have recently
received large deliveries of U.S. arms. Total transfers in 1974
and 1975 to Ethiopia were $27.9 million; Kenya, $1.9 million;
Zaire, $1.5 million, for a total of $31.3 million. These arms
deliveries underline Washington's new policy toward east
Africa when contraSted to the total of $(),2 million to the
same countries between 1970-73.
88
• In southern Africa, Washington has purportedly
shifted to a policy of supporting the gradual creation of
moderate, pro-Western, black majority governments. Wide­
spread rebellions in Rhodesia and South Africa in the last year
have made this goal more urgent. Yet the current intransigent
ruling white minorities are already allied with the West, and
South Africa is important to the u.S. Indian Ocean strategy.
Thus, the United States and NATO continue to supply
military equipment to South Africa. On the one hand, the
political leaders in Pretoria have attempted to pressure white
Rhodesians to grant piecemeal reforms, while on the other
hand, South African and Rhodesian soldiers have carried out
counterinsurgency campaigns against black guerrilla forces.
But because of increasing amounts of Soviet and Cuban
military and economic assistance to Angola and to other
African revolutionaries, the u.S. gradualistic approach will
only heighten armed conflict.
89
If this characterization of present-day U.S. strategy is
correct, then the Indian Ocean region clearly has become one
critical focal point of U.S.-Soviet competition in the Third
World. It is clear that Washington initiated its Indian Ocean
policy to repress the revolutionary potential of the region; but
it has recently had to alter some of its strategic precepts to
contain the Soviet Union's expansion into the Indian Ocean
area. Moscow's attempt to deter U.S. nuclear sea-based
strategic forces there was both logical and legitimate, but their
strategy of undercutting U.S. influence through political and
economic means raises different questions and implications.
Inclusion of the littoral states into a USSR strategic deterrent
scheme implies the replacement of U.S. domination by Soviet
domination. The evident economic benefits accrued from
penetrating the Third World offer a compelling reason for
Moscow to continue this strategy. The earlier example of
Egypt, and to a lesser extent India, shows that initial Soviet
support to "national liberation movements" can grow into
imperial control and exploitation. At military installations in
Berbera, visiting Congressional investigators reported that "the
Somalis admitted the Soviet presence, that the Soviets were in
command, and that the American team had been refused entry
even though it had been requested by the Somalis." 90 In
Angola, a U.S. Library of Congress report concludes that the
"Soviet KGB (secret police) was said to be effectively in
control of the departments of information and security." 91 To
minimize the Soviet Union's political and economic advances,
Washington will find it difficult to turn to a diplomatic
non-military type of solution and still keep dependency
relations intact. It now appears that arms sales and gunboat
diplomacy therefore will become the primary means of
maintaining and enhancing U.S. overseas interests. As the
Soviet Union continues to threaten to replace U.S. power and
authority by implementing similar policies, the chances of a
naval arms limitation agreement in the Indian Ocean between
the two superpowers grows dim. Thus, the structure of current
imperial relationships, and their contradictions, dictates the
present-day policies of both the United States and the Soviet
Union.92 Unless -substantial alterations occur within this
structure in the next decade, we can expect the rapid
militarization of the Indian Ocean, continuing contention
between the two major powers, occasionally punctuated by
outbreaks of fighting in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
Clearly the stability so desired by the United States-as
symbolized by the construction of the base at Diego Garcia-is
quite elusive; the imperial thrusts of the Soviet Union-as
shown by their control in Angola-are quite ominous; and the
revolutionary potential of the region is undiminished. '*
Notes
1. New York Times, April 22, 1976.
2. See U.S. Congress, House Committee on International
Relations, The Soviet Union and the Third World: A Watershed in
Great Power Policy?," Report. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1977). (Hereafter cited as The Soviet Union and the Third
World.)
3. Ibid., pp. 105-109.
4. Ibid., p. 104. A New Times editorial linked Soviet
operations in Angola and Brezhnev's speech more definitely: "[Sovietl
assistance contributed to the successes of the Angolan patriots in their
armed struggle against colonial rule, and now helps them defend the
sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of their country."
Ibid., p. 106.
5. Ibid., p. 104.
6. Ibid., p. 104.
7. Dale R. Tahtinen, Arms in the Indian Ocean (Washington,
D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1977),
introduction.
8. See Michael T. Klare, "Arms 1lnd Power," NACLA's Latin
American & Empire Report, March 1975, pp. 12-17.
9. The report The Soviet Union and the Third World
continuously indicates the chance for this superpower face-off.
Tahtinen, op. cit., gives a general review of potential area of future
U.S.-USSR clashes. For a specific study, see Tom J. Farer, War Clouds
on the Horn of Africa: A Crisis for Detente (New York: Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, 1976).
10. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Subcommittee on National Security and Scientific Developments, The
Indian Ocean: Political and Strategic Future, Hearings (GPO, 1971), p.
121. (Hereafter cited as Indian Ocean Hearings.) While the PRC has
aided in this shift, Chinese aid and trade has been substantially smaller
than the USSR's.
11. Elizabeth K. Valkenier, "Soviet Economic Relations with
the Developing Nations," pp. 235-36, in Roger E. Kanet (ed.), The
Soviet Union and the Developing Nations (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1974).
12. The Soviet Union and the Third World, p. 66.
13. Ibid., p. 66.
14. Phillip Darby, British Defense Policy East of Suez,
1947-1968 (London: Oxford University Press, 1973).
15. U.S. General Accounting Office, Financial and Legal
Aspects of Certain Indian Ocean Islands for Defense Purposes,
Departments Defense and State, Report of the Comptroller-General of
the United States, 10-76-30 (January 7, 1976), p. 4 (hereafter cited as
GAO Report).
16. Ibid., p. 4.
17. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic
Analysis: Survey of Current Business, 1975 Statistical Supplement
(May 1975), p. 109.
18. For the early relationship between U.S. overseas economic
interests and the development of the U.S. Navy, see Walter Lafeber,
The New Empire, An Interpretation of American Expansion 1860-1898
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1963), pp. 62-149. For present-day
analysis and perceptions, see Edward Luttwak, The Political Uses of Sea
Power (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974) and J. M.
Dunn, "The Third Century for 'The First Commercial Nation,' " in Sea
Power, October 1975.
19. New York Times. The Pentagon Papers (New York: Bantam
Books, 8th printing), p. 255.
20. Indian Ocean Hearings, pp. 170-71.
21. For further discussion, see Stephen R. Weissman, American
Foreign Policy in the Congo 1960-1964 (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1974) and Immanual Wallerstein, "Africa, the United States and
the World Economy: the Historical Bases of American Policy," in
Frederick S. Arhurst (ed.), U.S. Policy Toward Africa (New York:
Praeger, 1975). Concerning the CIA's plans for Lumumba, see "The
CIA Report the President Doesn't Want You to Read," The Village
Voice, Special Supplement, February 16, 1976.
22. For further examination of the India-China war, see Neville
Maxwell, India's China War (New York: Doubleday, 1972), Peter Van
Ness, "Is China an Expansionist Power?" in F. Horton, A. Rogerson,
and E. Warner, Comparative Defense Policy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1974) and Ishwer C. Ojha, Chi"ese Foreign Polir:y ;/
a" Age of Tra"sitio" (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), chapter 6.
63
23. Indian Ocean Hearings, p. 164.
24. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Subcommittee on the Near East and South Asia, Proposed Expansion
of u.s. Military Facilities in the Indian Ocean, Hearings. (GPO: 1973),
p. 90 (hereafter cited as Proposed Expansion Hearings).
25. GAO Report, p. 4.
26. Ibid., p. 4.
27. Michael T. Klare, War Without End (New York: Vintage
Books), pp. 348·62.
28. Proposed Expansion Hearings, p. 83.
29. See Morton Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign
Policy (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1974), pp.
2UH2.
30. Proposed Expansion Hearings, p. 83.
31. See The Congressional Record, April 14, 1974, pp.
H2616-H2626.
32. The Times (London) September 21, 1975. See also, U.S.
Congress, House Committee on International Relations, Special
Subcommittee on Investigations, Diego Garcia, 1975: The Debate Over
the Base and the Island's Former Inhabitants, Hearings (GPO: 1975)
(hereafter cited as Diego Garcia: 1975).
33. Michael T. Klare, "The Nixon/Kissinger Doctrine and
America's Pacific Basin Strategy,' Bulletin of Concerned Asian
Scholars, Vol. 7, no. 2, April-June, 1975.
34. The Economist, Nov. 11,1967, p. 595.
35. u.s. News & World Report, Oct. 23, 1967, pp. 59-60.
36. Proposed Expansion Hearings, p. 82, 124.
37. Ibid., p. 123.
38. Ibid., p. 130.
39. Washington Post, October 21, 1974.
40. Proposed Expansion Hearings, p. 1SO.
41. "The Indian Ocean: A New Arms Race?," The Defense
Monitor, April 1974; U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Armed
Services: Disapprove Construction Projects on the Island of Diego
Garcia, Hearings (GPO: 1975). (Hereafter cited as Disapprove
Construction Hearings).
42. U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,
Briefing on Diego Garcia and Patrol Frigate, Hearings (GPO: 1974), p.
27.
43. Tahtinen, p. 23.
44. Disapprove Construction Hearings, p. 150.
45. See Alvin Cottrell and R. M. Burrell, "Soviet-U.S.
Competition in the Indian Ocean," Orbis, Winter 1975.
46. The difference used here between conventional and strategic
war is that the former is a non-nuclear conflict, usually confined to a
geographically specific area. Strategic war implies a nuclear conflict on
a global scale.
47. The examination presented in this essay concerning
U.S.-Soviet naval capabilities is largely drawn from Michael T. Klare,
"Superpower Rivalry at Sea," Foreign Policy, Winter 1975-76. Unless
otherwise stated, all following citations of Klare refer to this Foreign
Policy essay.
48. Barry Blechman, The Changing Soviet Navy (Washington:
The Brookings Institution, 1973), p. 16.
49. Ibid., p. 11.
50. Geoffrey Jukes, "The Indian Ocean in Soviet Naval Policy,"
Adelphi Papers, #87 (May 1972), p. 56.
51. Ibid., pp. 6-7.
52. Ibid., p. 7.
53. Ibid., pp. 7-10. See also Barry Blechman, The Control of
Naval Armaments (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1975), pp.
39-41.
54. Jukes, pp. 27-28.
55. Ibid., p. 18.
56. Ibid., p. 22.
57. Klare, pp. 164-65.
58. U.S. Congress, Committee on Armed Services, Special
Subcommitee to Inspect Facilities at Berbera, Somalia. Report (GPO:
1975), p. 9.
59. Ibid.; see also Disapprove Construction Hearings; and U.S.
Congress, Senate Committee on Armed Services, Soviet Military
Capability in Berbera, Somalia, Committee Print (GPO: 1975).
60. Washington Post, May 5, 1976.
61. See "CIA Testimony on Soviet Presence in the Indian
Ocean," Congressional Record, August I, 1974, pp. SI4092-S14095.
See also, "Base Necessities; U.S. Predominate in Some Areas, USSR
Elsewhere," Sea Power (August 1974), and Jukes, p. 19.
62. Klare, pp. 164-65.
63. Blechman, The Changing Soviet Navy, p. 29.
64. Annual Defense Department Report Fiscal Year 1977, p.99
(hereafter cited as Defense Dept 77).
65. Blechman, The Changing Soviet Navy, p. 27.
66. Jukes, p. 21.
67. Defense Dept 77, p. 100.
68. Quoted in Klare, p. 166.
69. Proposed Expansion Hearings, p. 34, 53, 134, 149.
70. Letter from Admiral Zumwalt to Senator Proxmire,
Congressional Record, June 12, 1972, p. S20492.
71. Diego Garcia, 1975, pp. 12-13.
72. Orah Cooper, "Soviet Economic Aid to the Third World" in
U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Soviet Economy in a New
Perspective-A Compendium of Papers, Joint Committee Print (GPO:
1975), p. 189. The following discussion on Soviet economic relations is
based on Cooper's essay.
73. Soviet and Eastern European economic credits and grants
from 1954-76 totalled: Somalia, $159 million; Syria, $1,195 million;
Iraq, $1,118 million; Pakistan, $736 million; Afghanistan, $1,291
million; India, $2,430 million; and Indonesia, $377 million. From The
Soviet Union and the Third World, pp. 124-25.
74. Cooper, p. 190.
75. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Communist Aid to Less
Developed Countries of the Free World, 1975, July 1976, p. 8.
76. Cooper, p. 190.
77. In addition to Cooper, see David K. Wills, "Soviet hit on
'Third World' aid," Christian Science Monitor, October 5, 1976 and
Christopher S. Wren, "Soviet, Despite Effort to Court Third World,
Limits Its Foreign Aid," New York Times, August 20,1976.
78. Cooper, p. 192.
79. Quoted in Valkenier, p. 219.
80. Quoted in The Soviet Union and the Third World, p. 64.
81. Ibid., p. 65.
82. Jukes, p. 20.
83. Blechman, The Control of Naval Armaments, pp. 12-13. See
also George C. Hudson, "Soviet Naval Doctrine and Soviet Politics,"
World Politics, October 1976.
84. Klare, p. 162.
85. Quoted in Klare, p. 162.
86. "Criticism of defense budget declines amid perceptions of
growing Soviet military power," Gallup Opinion Index, April 1976, pp.
19-20.
87. See Michael T. Klare, "The Political Economy of Arms
Sales, United States-Saudi Arabia," Society, Sept.lOct. 1974; Barry
Rubin, "Sub-Empires in the Persian Gulf," The Progressive, Jan. 1975;
"U.S. Arms to the Persian Gulf: $10 Billion since 1973," The Defense
Monitor, May 1975; Maurice Pearson, "The Persian Gulf has a Deadly
Little Arms Race," New York Times, Dec. IS, 1974; Richard Burt,
"Iranian Navy Growing as an Indian Ocean Power," Christian Science
Monitor, Aug. 22, 1975.
88. See Bernard Winraub, "Zaire to Get More U.S. Weapons,"
New York Times, June 20, 1976; "U.S. to Sell Kenya 12 F-15's in $70
Million Arms Deal," ibid" June 17, 1976; George Shepherd, "U.S.
Arms for African Wars," June 1976 (mimeo); "Kenya Sets Off on the
E. African Arms Race," African Development, June 1976; Leslie H.
Gelb, "U.S.-Soviet Stakes in Africa," New York Times, July 18, 1976;
Randall Robinson, "Gulf Oil's Strategy to Appease and Oppress," The
Black Scholar, Dec. 1973-Jan. 1974.
89. See "Allies in Empire, the U.S. & Portugal in Africa,"
special edition Africa Today, July/Aug. 1970; "Southern Africa and
U.S. Foreign Policy," special edition Africa Today, July/Sept. 1976;
D. C. Watt, "The Continuing Strategic Importance of Simonstown,"
U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Oct. 1969; Geoffrey Rippon, "South
Africa and Vital Strategy: the Importance of South Africa," The
Round Table, July 1970; George Shephers, The United Nation's Arms
Embargo on South Africa and the Cape Route. Presented to the 16th
Annual Convention of the International Studies Association,
Washington, D.C., Feb. 20, 1975; C. Munhamu Botsio Utete, "NATO
and Southern Africa," The Black Scholar, May 1976; Peter D. Jones,
"NATO, South Africa and the USA," WIN Magazine, Nov. 20, 1975;
Chester A. Crocker, "The African Dimension of Indian Ocean Policy,"
Orbis, FalI 1976; Michael C. Jensen, "U.S. Checking Mobil's Role in
Rhodesia," New York Times, Aug. 2, 1976.
90. Soviet Military Capal;1ility in BeTbera, Somalia, p. 15.
91. The Soviet Union and the Third World, pp. 104-109.
92. See Johan Galtung, "Conflict on a Global Scale: Social
Imperialism and Sub-Imperialism-Continuities in the Structural Theory
of Imperialism," World Development, March 1976; and Jan 0berg,
"Arms Trade with the Third World as an Aspect of Imperialism,"
Journal of Peace Research, 1975, no. 3.
64